BUGFOX DREAM DIARY

Below you will find a log of some particularly memorable dreams I have had over the years. The entries will be formatted in descending chronological order of the date or broader time period each dream took place in, as I will no doubt be updating with much more recent dreams in future of course!

Surf rock ghost

I was in a house I have memory of visiting as a larvalkit. My father was there with me and was in a room, deep frying some nondescript items (I cannot recall what they looked like) in a large pot of oil upon a gas-powered stove. He then showed me one of the burners was able to produce a flame in the shape of a cylinder. Whilst this was taking place, a strange surf rock-like song was playing, though it did not seem to be from coming from a speaker or anything of the sort; in the dream it felt like the song was a manifestation of some variety of ghost-like presence.

Overworked and underpaid courier

I was waiting for a delivery of some nondescript variety to my home, but for some reason was waiting around a car park in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood of some variety. A courier then appeared abruptly and handed me a cardboard box, but then proceeded to loiter around the car park with a vaguely-panicked demeanour.

I felt bad for the courier and wanted to help them, so they said to leave positive feedback on an application that I could not install on my phone. This then lead to me reading aloud something to the affect of "customers have the inherent right to ask our delivery workers to perform the Moscow Pose". I did not know what "Moscow Pose" meant but this lead to the courier immediately throwing himself to the ground and laying on his right side, his hands and feet stretched out as far as his arms and legs could reach. I tried to assure the courier that I did not ask for that but he responded by telling me that he was "obligated" to do so.

TV show about "sentient beings"

I was travelling to a hospital I regularly attended medical appointments at over a decade ago, accompanied by two other beings I cannot recall much details about other than they were broadly humanoid in shape. On the way to the hospital, one of the aforementioned beings repeatedly told me about a new television show about “sentient beings” that was going to air on UK broadcaster Channel 4 later that day. I was told this again at several later points in the dream by various characters in the dream that I cannot recall any discernible details about at all.

When I arrived at the hospital, the building I used to attend appointments at (which seemed to be my destination in the dream) did not have any resemblance to how it appeared in my memory of it in the real world. I had to enter a strange, wide hallway that may have been an underground passage of some sort. It had a grey carpet with a tile-like pattern and white walls. One of the walls had a window with a view into what appeared to be a video rental shop visible on the other side. There was a shelf relatively close to the window that had a row of old PlayStation games, though I can’t recall any details other than the standard black PlayStation label at the bottom of the cover images.

Later in the dream, I was watching the television show about “sentient beings”. It opened with a fleshy red coloured nudibranch-like animal floating around in front of a pylon in the middle of a field, with a human eyeball gazing through their dorsal side. The show then abruptly cut to a group of chimeric monsters, all bearing the same red colouration as the nudibranch, fighting each other in an office meeting room. The monsters appeared as various mammals with hominid-like traits applied to them.

The last image I remember from the dream was an orangutang-like monster sat away at another table from the others that were viciously fighting. They were eating a dumpling of some variety.

Nyctereutes procyonoides

I was sat in a dense forest, seemingly slightly before dusk. Many of the leaves in the surrounding dense vegetation were a markedly dark grey colour. There was a raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) sat near me. They approached me and looked up at me, speaking in a quiet human-like voice. They said “We are in a state of conflict”, then ran off into the nearby foliage and vanished. The dream ended very shortly after.

Note: This dream was the motivation behind this piece I produced days later!

Grimdark live-action Wallace and Gromit reboot

I was in some capacity witnessing what seemed to be a grimdark reimagining or reboot of Wallace and Gromit, with live human actors.

The narrative involved Wallace crying hysterically to his wife (whom I recall seemed to be live-action analog to Wendolene from A Close Shave), ruminating on the idea that neither of them were doing anything worthwhile with their lives. Wallace then aburptly decides to go and see a figure he referred to as "The Reverend", with Wendolene advising Wallace to say he is having fish and chips, apparently to ensure that he is not too late when with The Reverend.

I seem to recall the dream abruptly cut to Wallace talking to an individual dressed in gothic clothing, whom of which revealed to Wallace that she was working on a project involving a "lightbulb collection".

The dream ended very soon after this; despite the dream being about Wallace and Gromit, there was no presence of Gromit in any form that I recall. The original Notes app file containing the details I wrote of this dream at the specified date was timestamped at 4:26am.

You are the culmination of the narrative

I recall having a dream which seemed to focus on multiple narratives that focused on a bevy of individual characters that each had their own story. I remember absolutely no details about these characters, their stories or even how many of them there were (other than some were not humanoid in shape), but I have vivid memory of falling over backwards in a workshop of some variety. Following this, the dream immediately ended after all of the characters in the various narrative threads of the dream crowded around me and stared directly at me with some intensity. This was the last image I saw just prior to waking up moments later.

Recurrent dreams about an abandoned house that was once populated by colourful puppets

During the a period from the mid to late 2010s, I began to start having punctuated bouts of recurrent dreams, all of which connected by the fact they focused on a cottage film set that was used for the 1990s children’s puppet show Tots TV*. The set (now long-destroyed by the landowners) was situated in a small patch of woodland and had been left abandoned since the show had finished production, presumably at some point in the late 1990s.

The events that took place in these dreams varied, and sometimes they would be from the perspective of myself present at the abandoned cottage, or in some cases would be about characters I was witnessing from a third person perspective. I think I had at least one hundred of these dreams (if I were to quantify that the location appearing in any capacity in my dreams counted), many of them feeling variably unsettling and or beyond what I would be able to describe in words.

Here are some notable dreams I recall:

• I entered the abandoned house and found that it looked surprisingly pristine, given it had been left derelict for a number of years. There was a short staircase leading to an upper floor, which led to a small platform with what appeared to be prototypical versions of the puppets from the show propped up from small beds, gazing at me intensely. The puppets had eyes that looked much more organic and I was very unsettled by their presence, despite them being inanimate.
• I was there at dusk on an autumnal evening and the house was elevated, seemingly floating slightly above the ground of the patch of woodland it was situated in. There was a distinctly ochre-coloured luminescence cast from underneath it. There was also a male human dressed like a medieval serf of some variety that was gazing up into the house. I was watching this happen from relatively close proximity behind some foliage.
• A group of three nondescript human characters in a large cottage in a rural village were arguing, with one of the humans trying to block off the other two with a barrage of wooden panels. A CRT television with a built-in VHS player was playing the opening of The Story Store (a British children's stop-motion animated series from the 1990s) whilst this was happening. The nondescript trio then boarded a small plane, where they then flew to the site of the abandoned cottage. I recall seeing them walk towards it and then disappear, before the dream abruptly ended.

*For those unfamiliar,Tots TV was a children's show that aired on the children's programming block on the UK TV channel ITV in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. It featured a trio of human puppets, named Tom, Tilly and Tiny living in the aforementioned cottage. The appearance of the puppets terrified me as a larvalkit (and to this day, I still find them rather unsettling); I argue that they fit very comfortably within the depths of the Uncanny Valley. Furthermore, the show had a certain liminal and eerie atmosphere that I have not really seen replicated elsewhere (the music and sound design in particular do unnerve me to this day). For this reason I developed a fascination with the show and its unusual atmosphere when I was older.

By the end of the tape, he had left for good

Content warning: Discussion of abuse and mention of implied death.

The following is a dream I recall having when I was a teenage bugfox. At the time I was profoundly unhappy and was heavily masking so much of my being and identity constantly, due to the fact I was living in a very abusive and oppressive situation at the time (which I thankfully escaped years later), which I feel may have contributed to how uniquely bleak and dismal this dream (and others I had in that period) felt to me. I was also heavily hyperfixated on VHS tapes (as well as other cassette-based media formats, such as Betamax) at the time too, with some emphasis on tapes released by the (now long-defunct) Carlton Home Entertainment home media distributor.

I was watching a VHS tape, which I believe in the dream was specifically one of the Tots TV VHS tapes I remember having as a larvalkit. The tape was playing from the beginning and instead of the Carlton Home Entertainment promo that played before the main contents of the tape, it was seemingly replaced by a greyscale image of an elaborate, abstract tapestry-like image, possibly a logo. At the top of it in an elliptical shape was a portait of a human man filmed in real-time (akin to the footage of the lion in the vintage MGM logo). Despite my frequent issues with remembering and recognising the faces of humans I know or have at least met before, I do recall quite clearly what the man looked like, with a very round, bald head and a bristly, short moustache. The man had very large eyes and very curved cheeks. He was wearing a grey suit.

The man started talking, the wording of which I am not quite able to recall at all, but the essence was him talking about the tape and possibly how VHS tapes were printed, referring to the tape I was watching as "his tape". He ended by saying (perhaps addressing me as I watched it, though the vagueness suggested he was uncertain if any other beings could see or hear him, but he had sensed my presence in some manner) that he "won't be here anymore by the time the tape ends" (paraphrased). The footage of him then faded out to black, with the logo soon fading out and the contents of the tape (episodes of Tots TV, as aforementioned) commencing shortly after.

I remember suddenly seeing the end of the tape, with the same elaborate, abstract tapestry image shown, but with no sign at all of the man. It was only the still image and complete silence, before this too eventually faded to black and the tape ending shortly after. In the dream, this had somehow registered to me that the man had died, with myself as the final being to see him alive.

I've always found this dream to be incredibly haunting and sad, yet extremely fascinating in the same sort of capacity.

We have nothing left but a dormant being

The entire world was (by geological standards, anyway) undergoing an absurdly sudden new ice age, with natural and urban landscapes both being encrusted with grey-tinted walls of ice. I seemed to be one of the very few beings still alive and I noticed that the immediate climate did not feel cold, let alone as freezing to me, as the environment would have otherwise clearly demonstrated.

I found myself entering a large sky scraper and was suddenly within a room on one of the much higher floors of the building, being a fairly generic-looking vast office floor, with some cubicles that were all completely devoid of any signs of humans. I was confronted by a being who looked very humanoid in form and a body that had a strong resemblance to the abundant walls of ice. They were floating above the floor in a foetal postion. They did not make any sounds or move, but in the narrative of the dream, this being was supposed to be an anthropmorphic form of totalitarianism. I recall I left the room and the dream ended sometime after, with the remainder being incomperehensible or forgotten.

Congregation at the Wonky Circus

I was walking around a large, somewhat desolate and empty campus of some variety, at first accompanied by my father. He told me he had just won a large sum of money in the lottery, but was struggling profoundly to find a reasonable use for it. After walking along a desolate dirt path on the campus, we parted ways and I entered a large theatre-like building at the end of the path.

When I entered, the interior was a hall that appeared to bear a heavy resemblance to the latter half of the Wonky Circus level from the Nintendo GameCube video game Wario World, specifically the townscape and houses that the eponymous “circus” seems to be absorbing in the latter half of the level. The blimp that appears towards the end of the Mirror Mansion level from the same game was also present, floating above the patrons in the hall and with the dog puppet-like enemies (also from Mirror Mansion) gazing at those below from inside.

Many of the walls were encrusted with colourful balloons, party decorations and I was extremely unsettled and overstimulated by the loud noise, visually busy environment and sheer number of beings around. Aside from the aforementioned dog puppet enemies from Wario World who were also walking aimlessly around the hall, the majority of other beings walking around the room were incomprehensible to me and I had no recollection at all of what they looked like; I do recall with certainty however that Sid and Stinky from the animated series Hey Arnold (a piece of media I had been hyperfixated on at the time) were present, grinning but not saying anything.

The dream ended with a number of the balloons gravitating towards me and exploding. I recall that I woke up immediately after this and felt very unsettled for the entirety of the day that followed.

Wario's forsaken restaurant

I had become aware of a large international chain of fast food restaurants with children's play areas (very much akin to McDonald's PlayPlaces), all of which were heavily themed around the Nintendo GameCube video game Wario World*, first released in 2003. In the dream, I learned that chain had apparently been commissioned and funded by Nintendo to promote the release of Wario World, with a plethora of locations opened internationally; it reportedly was a massive financial failure and most of the locations had shut down from 2004 onwards. I was seemingly aware of all of this information in the dream, which had entailed myself visiting what was allegedly the final remaining active location of the chain (which was for some reason located in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood).

The remaining Wario World restaurant was comprised of a very tiny interior with tables and chairs typical of fast food restaurants such as McDonald's, with most of the cosmetic theming related to Wario World painted over or removed entirely, according to a non-descript entity in the dream (whom I recall no details about the appearance or essence of, other than they may possibly have worked at the restaurant). There was a GameCube kiosk on one of the walls, which appeared to have not been used for years. There was also apparently a soft-play area that was much more expansive than the main restaurant area, though this was behind a locked door that had not been opened for a considerable period of time. Despite not entering the area myself in the dream, I recall that before the dream had ended, I saw the interior of the soft-play area, which was largely empty. There was a very large cushioned mat on the floor and another GameCube kiosk inside, which had similarly remained out of use for some time.

*At the time of this dream, I was heavily hyperfixated on Wario World. I was particularly fascinated by the often unexpectedly dissonant tone of the game and the very surreal atmosphere it frequently entailed. To this day, I consider Wario World one of my favourite video games because of this (as well as having some very stylish and sometimes even mildly unsettling creature designs for the enemies and bosses, too). I attribute this intense hyperfixation and obsession with the game at this period of time as the reason I had this dream and the one I experienced during the subsequent night (see the entry above, titled Congregation at the Wonky Circus.)

Something that was not supposed to be seen

I dreamt I was Furryboo*, wandering around a grassy, hilly landscape that seemed devoid of life. I looked up at a steep incline and saw the puppet Tom (from Tots TV as stated above; for reasons I am uncertain of, I found the puppet to be the most unsettling of the trio that appeared in the show) slowly appear over the horizon. He looked down from the top of the hill and stared at me with a discomforting intensity. This continued until the dream ended.

*Furryboo was another character that appeared in Tots TV. Furryboo was a small canine-like creature puppet with curly creamy ochre-coloured fur who made audible sniffing noises as he moved around. The trio of human-like puppets were always completely unaware of the presence of Furryboo, to the point of not even knowing he existed. Furryboo would sometimes interfere with thveryeir activities in some inconsequential way. I will admit that even though I found the show unsettling (and as an adult bugfox, still do in some capacity), Furryboo is rather adorable and I identified with him in some way at that much younger age (which tangentially I feel is perhaps among what I consider to be early evidence of my identity as a caninekin).

Alfred Chicken is missing

I dreamt what seemed to be an animated sequence about the PlayStation video game Alfred Chicken*, wherein a montage of different groups of characters were seen asking "Where is Alfred Chicken?", which I seem to recall comprised the majority of the dream. I do not recall much detail at all about these characters, other than there seeemed to be one that was a saturated pink and yellow in colour, though that is the full extent of my memory of them. The sequence ended with a character bearing an almost identical appearance to the Alfred Chicken character (the only difference being their feathers or body was a sky blue colour, instead of the saturated crimson red of Alfred's actual design) stood on top of a yellow cuboid and repeated the same question one final time.

*Alfred Chicken was a 2D platformer with sylised 3D graphics, released on the Sony PlayStation exclusively in Europe in 2002, developed by Möbius Entertainment. It was a game I did not own at that time as a larvalkit, though in spite of this I was at one point obsessed with the game, having played a PlayStation Demo Disc released as a McDonald's promotion that contained previews and one playable level of the full game (among three other PlayStation titles). I must have played the singular level on the Demo Disc hundreds of times, I was deeply fascinated with the game. I remember my father taking me to the video game shop in the locality to see if there were any copies available, but I was never able to source a copy of the game at the time. As an adult bugfox, I do in fact own a copy of the game at present and I will say that the game has an eerie feel to it, with some dissonant visuals and sound design (some of the music is actively unsettling to me at times) that appeal to me greatly. It's a very strange game but I am to this day rather fond of it and recommend it highly if you enjoy older, bizarre platformer games.

Dulux Paint

A dream I had at a very young age. I was standing in a public park my father would take me to often at the time and was confronted by a talking dog, specifically of the Old English Sheepdog breed. I assume this specific breed appeared in association with the fact I was extremely terrified of a particular advertisement for Dulux brand paint that aired on television at the time, though the specific contents of the advert itself that frightened me so profoundly did not feature anything to do with the dog mascot itself.

The talking dog spoke to me in a cartoonishly gruff voice (akin to an archetypical "cartoon villain" voice, if I were to describe it further) and repeatedly said “This is the end of the episode” (which I am fairly certain was the exact wording) to me, before regurgitating pieces of metal in my direction. This repeated multiple times until they spit what appeared to be a small metal key at me, with the dream ending after picking it up.